General overview of Education in Indonesia

By Azys Syaiful Anwar 

Education is the most significant part of our life. I’ve ever heard an opinion mainly arguing that people must be born in a perfect condition as a human. Each of them has incredible intelligence which is more than another creature in this world. Then, to keep or even develop their basic intelligence, they need proper education. Education is the process of transferring knowledge and it’s not merely a direct learning to the natural environment but also the elaboration of knowledge through teaching and learning process in the formal class.

In Indonesia, all the things related to the educational field are managed by the Ministry of National Education of Indonesia (Departemen Pendidikan Nasional Republik Indonesia/Depdiknas), formerly the Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia (Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia/Depdikbud). Regarding to the government policy, all the Indonesian must take nine years of compulsory education (six years at elementary level and three in junior high school).

As what written in the law no. 20/ 2003, the Indonesian education consists of formal and non-formal forms. The formal form can be defined as a structural and gradual education system which comprises with elementary, secondary and tertiary education. Meanwhile, the non-formal education deals with all the forms of education (out of the formal field) which are structurally and gradually managed.
The more detail of education in Indonesia can be seen in the following table

Levels	Type	Students’ Age	Additional information
Primary	Early childhood	3 – 5 years	The first formal education which is aimed to prepare students to study to the higher level.
	elementary	6 – 12 years	The compulsory level of education for Indonesian. It provides students six years learning period.
Secondary	Junior high school	12 – 15 years	The three years study which must be undertaken by Indonesian to complete the compulsory education.
	Senior High school	15 - 18	There are two options of choosing the next level of the junior high school. Students may study in a senior high school (SMA) or specified their study in Specified learning high school (SMK/ STM).
Tertiary	University	18+	Most of the students of senior high school take study to this level.